


Families of Accident; Families of War

by Lia



Series: The Archer with the Eyes of a Hawk [2]
Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate, Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: 12 very vocal and strong personalitied people around a kitchen table was probably a mistake, But it helps, Canon-Typical Violence, Clint will probably regret this in the morning, Crossover, Don't have to know Animorphs canon, Drunk!Clint is four handfuls, Especially when most of them are trying to be drunk, I Don't Even Know, I should probably stop using AO3 tags like tumblr tags, Let's face it: Disney Movies are a recipe for disaster with these folks, Multi, Non-Graphic Violence, Occasional swearing, Ohana is probably Clint's worst trigger at this point, Sorry not sorry?, Tony Stark will always find an excuse for strippers, why do I do this to myself?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-06
Updated: 2012-12-10
Packaged: 2017-11-18 02:20:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/555804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lia/pseuds/Lia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint Barton wasn't always Clint Barton. His name, a long time ago now, once was Tobias. And as he finds his old life increasingly bleeding into his new, he finds it harder and harder to work though it all, through himself. One night, everything he always wanted to put behind him is right up front and center again.</p><p>Or: Clint is hit hard by a Disney movie, has angst, and gets really, really drunk. Now he keeps calling Natasha the wrong name. (Who's "Rachel" anyway?)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> As always, a huge thank you goes out to [TheGreatSporkWielder](../users/TheGreatSporkWielder) for looking over my shoulder and saying "Yes, this is good, keep at it." when I needed the boosts.
> 
> Another goes to my awesome friend Amy, without whom this series would not exist and beta'd this work wonderfully - any remaining mistakes are my own.
> 
> [Elenorasweet](../users/elenorasweet/pseuds/elenorasweet) has also promised art for this! (I was doing this for a big bang and... things happened. ['Nuff said.] We had already sort of arranged ourselves as artist/author so we're just going with it.) I AM REALLY EXCITED ABOUT ART FOR THIS GUYS. REALLY EXCITED.
> 
> I am posting this story in six chapters, including the prologue. It's finished, but I'm posting once a week on Mondays because hopefully that will buy me time to start on the next part of the series. (I know what I want to write BUT WORDS ARE HARD.)
> 
> I am still floored by all the wonderful comments that "If Man Were Meant to Fly..." received. Thank you all for your support, and your patience while I pulled this section from the quicksand of my brain. If anyone is interested in following my tumblr - where I mostly just reblog other people's awesome things - for whatever reason, it can be found here: http://chromatographic.tumblr.com/

Tony is, somewhat ironically, the one who institutes Team Night in Avengers Tower. Which in theory goes like this: One of the Avengers cooks dinner on a rotation, and whoever cooked picks “I don’t know a movie or whatever” that includes everyone, and they just chill as a team.

 

In practice it goes like this:

 

Every Thursday, whoever isn’t on a mission or otherwise away participates, with occasional additions of friends. The accepted list grows a bit with time, but usually winds up consisting of Pepper, Rhodey, Jane, Darcy, and/or Coulson. And once, memorably, strippers.

 

Tony was never allowed to pick the ‘entertainment’ portion _ever again_.

 

Tony _is_ , however, allowed to cook, as long as Pepper’s there to keep an eye on him. He’s gotten good at omelettes, though sometimes Pepper has to steer him away from the stove and towards the delivery menus.

 

Bruce makes marvelous Indian recipes with mouth-watering spices. He even makes two dishes each time - one ‘mild’ and one ‘actually flavored’. Only three people can stand the spicier one: Bruce, Tony, and Jane. Clint tried once, and decided that ‘Team Science’ must have somehow re-engineered their own taste buds. Thor can barely eat the ‘mild’ version, and drinks at least ten glasses of milk each time. Bruce also always makes homemade _naan_ , an Indian bread, to go with the meal because baking is ‘just basic chemistry’. Occasionally he makes _lassi_ , and Indian yoghurt drink that Thor in particular loves. He also bakes cookies - lots of them - and they’re always gone before dinner is even over.

 

His entertainment is always animated kids movies, mostly Disney and Pixar works. It somehow winds up being his night more frequently than anyone else’s, apparently because he’s the least busy and active outside the tower, but Bruce suspects its more that everyone likes his cooking and the movies.

 

Natasha is an excellent cook, but she’s the one who is most frequently away. Her first turn, she made borscht and Tony refused to try it until she stared him down. (He still won’t admit that he liked it.) She usually brings out cards and has them play poker, bridge, canasta, and others. All betting games are done penny-ante with an even amount of cash for everyone at the start to make it fair, under Steve’s and Pepper’s insistence. Once, she introduced a somewhat violent game she claimed was called “Egyptian Ratscrew” that involved slapping cards. They stopped the game after Thor almost broke Tony’s hand in his enthusiasm.

 

At some point, Jane taught Thor how to make Spaghetti and Meatballs. Thor, surprisingly, is excellent at this recipe, and makes it every time. Everyone loves it. He joins Bruce’s mission of going through animated movies with childlike wonder, proclaiming them “Most excellent tales!”

 

Steve is the one who takes his nights the most seriously. He’s grown to love Food Network (and loves how plentiful food is now - he remembers the Great Depression, and sickness, and _hunger_ ) and he always winds up trying new recipes on the nights he cooks for the team. He goes out early the morning of, and hits a list of markets JARVIS sets up for what he will need. He gets heirloom tomatoes and vegetables, as fresh as he can, because they’re the only one’s that _taste right_. Modern supermarket vegetables often taste like wax and cardboard to him. (He remembers as a kid, his mother growing what she could in a tiny garden, and biting into a tomato picked right from the vine on a hot summer’s day.) He could get the concierge service to go for the ingredients, no matter how obscure, but somehow that feels _wrong_ to him - he was just a poor, skinny kid from Brooklyn, after all.

 

The first time he went out like this, Steve wandered into a little hole-in-the-wall shop that said it sold comics and games. They didn’t have any trading cards except for something called “Magic” but that didn’t look like card tricks. They had all sorts of games around the store, though, including Monopoly (REAL Monopoly, too, in contrast to the strange versions he had seen that were themed in some way, or the one that didn’t use _paper money_ ), so he bought it. Now, Cap comes back with a new game each time to try them out. (Though he _still_ doesn’t understand what this ‘Pokemon’ thing is.)

 

Clint doesn’t cook. He _grills_. Burgers, hot dogs, pork chops, chicken breast, vegetables, fruits - whatever. He’s picky about it, too. He uses a charcoal grill and refuses to use the quick light briquettes for reasons no one else quite gets, instead patiently kindling and tending the coals to the perfect temperature. He’ll grill in the middle of winter, when its snowing, but never when its raining.

 

Everyone agrees his burgers are the best they’ve ever eaten.

 

His activity is the team all watching TV, somewhat evenly divided between sports and ridiculously cheesy sifi or sitcoms. He seems to pick them at random - Tony asks him once, especially as he doesn’t seem to follow any particular show, or team, or even _sport_. Clint just shrugs and tells him that he just picks what looks interesting. (Everyone blames him for introducing Thor to  How I Met Your Mother. Thor begins to watch it faithfully on Mondays and eventually drags Steve and _Pepper_ into it, too. The team now has to sit through arguments about who Barney should marry, and where the heck the pineapple came from. And even _Clint_ regrets it when Thor accidentally calls Agent Hill “Robin”.)

 

Overall, team nights were good, light-hearted fun for a group of people who semi-regularly saved the world and their associates.

 

If only the movie nights would stop causing problems.

 

Bruce thought that animated movies - made for _kids_ after all - would be a nice way for the team to relax and help both Steve and Thor learn more of modern American culture. He started with some classic Disney, of course.  Bambi went fine with just a few sniffles from the crew, as did classic fairy tales - Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella \- all had no problems except Natasha’s occasional snark in the background.

 

Beauty and the Beast was the first problem, and it was Bruce’s own. Jane and Darcy had joined them that night, though, and when Bruce left the room and didn’t come back after a few minutes, Darcy followed. Jane’s the one who found them after the movie, asleep together on the couch in Bruce’s lab. (They were fully clothed. Tony teased them anyway.)

 

The Iron Giant wound up being the next problem. Tony poured himself a glass of whiskey halfway through the movie, and when it was over he hid in his workshop until Steve pulled him out two days later.

 

The very next movie was The Lion King. Thor started bawling after the stampede, and wondered aloud if Scar could be redeemed. A minute after that, Darcy (who had started showing up on all of Bruce’s nights, on the insistence that she really liked Disney movies) slipped out of the room for a minute. Jane appeared as soon as the movie ended, and took Thor in hand.

 

When Anastasia turned up, everyone carefully not-noticed that Natasha was curled into Clint’s arms as he handed her tissues.

 

 _Everyone_ shed a few tears at  WALL-E, but within three days Steve had called all the women “Peggy” at least once, and then looked distraught. He stopped after Pepper talked to him privately, and they all looked past the fact that his eyes were red and puffy the entire rest of the day.

 

The moment Clint heard the words “And tonight’s potential disaster is... “ out of Tony’s mouth, he got a sinking feeling.

 

When the sentence ended with Lilo and Stitch, Clint knew he was _fucked._


	2. Drunk!Clint

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint gets drunk and miserable and misses his old life, and he's _so drunk_ that he can't stop himself from babbling about it all. He's _so_ going to regret this in the morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go... Next chapter will be up next Monday! Thanks everyone for reading and your awesome comments, kudos, and support!

 

 

 

Amazingly, everyone who was the informal group of ‘Avengers and Associates’ (Tony’s phrase) was around for this team night; even those who Tony didn’t necessarily want to acknowledge as such.

 

The full count wound up being:

 

  1. An ancient Norse alien and possibly god, Thor,
  2. His human girlfriend, Dr. Jane Foster,
  3. Said girlfriend’s lab assistant, Darcy Lewis, who was lately flirting with,
  4. Dr. Bruce Banner, who sometimes literally turned into a giant green rage-monster,
  5. Said rage-monster’s best friend, Tony Stark,
  6. Stark’s babysitter/girlfriend/CEO/whatever, Pepper Potts,
  7. Her fellow control-influence on Stark, Rhodey Rhodes, who was talking animatedly with,
  8. Steve Rogers, team leader and Captain America, who had a true fanboy in,
  9. Agent Phil Coulson - stoic, badass, possible secret-ninja, and still technically on medical leave after being stabbed in the chest - who was the S.H.I.E.L.D. handler for them all but had known longest,
  10. Clint himself, as well as his partner
  11. Natasha Romanoff, aka the Black Widow, who had _apparently invited_
  12. Maria Hill, who was on leave while the Helicarrier was grounded for maintenance and repairs from the latest attack.



 

This was going to be a clusterfuck. Especially with Hill here. Clint could see it coming. He’d say that someone would never be forgiven, except he didn’t know _who_. So when they went to the small home theater (with this many people, the usual rec room wasn’t big enough, and it’s _Tony’s_ house) he went straight up to the top row and pulled Natasha into a recliner next to him. She raised her eyebrows briefly but followed his lead.

 

As everyone else settled in for the movie - the known couples and flirtations winding up next to one another, of course - and, wait. The hell? Did Rhodes just make flirty eyes at _Hill?_

 

They were going to sit together.

 

They were sitting together.

 

Clint was never more glad that Stark was an extravagant billionaire alcoholic, because there was a mini-fridge in reach. He had needed it before seeing that, but still.

 

By sheer luck ( _Maybe_ \- Between Jarvis and Stark’s subtle underhanded kindnesses, he couldn’t be sure) it had a bottle of his and Natasha’s favorite vodka. He got it out and opened it - they’d shared without glasses plenty of times before.

 

Clint was tipsy within the first ten minutes of the film. By the first time Lilo explained _Ohana_ to Stitch, he had crawled into Nat’s recliner and was snuggling her. (He was fairly certain that this was only tolerated because the recliners were huge, he was drunk, it was dark so no one could see them, or at least people could rightly pretend _not_ to see him, and somehow she loved his sorry ass.) When that wasn’t helping enough, he took another big swig from the bottle and thank _fuck_ they were in the back.

 

Nat was doing her best, she really was, but - yeah - no way in _hell_ was this night going to end well, so fuck it. On that note, Clint killed the bottle (and the most sober part of his brain hoped Nat had helped him with it, because _no one_ needed their stomach pumped combined with flashbacks) and set it back on his former seat.

 

The last few minutes he softly quoted the movie word-for-word until Stitch was going after Lilo.

 

“ _Ohana_ means family,” he croaked right along with the film. “Family means nobody gets left behind. Or f-forgotten.” He hiccuped and wondered if he said that louder than he should have.

 

***

 

_Okay,_ Maria Hill thought, _So I probably should have been paying more attention to Barton lately._ She pushed a lock of hair out of her face. _Damnit._

 

She knew that Clint was scarred by the war - _their_ war. She knew that he still blamed himself for a lot of the things that were horrible and _not his fault_. She should have expected this. Seeing  Lilo and Stitch had been one of the last fun, lighthearted things they had all done together before everything went completely to hell.

 

So when Pepper turned around to look at Clint as he started mumbling along with the movie, they made eye-contact. Pepper raised her eyebrows ( _This is your call_ ), and Maria grimaced back ( _Yeah. I know_ ). She felt Rhodes shift beside her, and shit, she’d been starting to like the guy and knew he was starting to like her, and there were _so many ways_ this could go wrong.

 

Maria sighed as Clint stuttered through the last _Ohana_ phrase loud enough that even _Thor_ (who was all the way up front and always totally engrossed in any movie) looked back at him. Well, anyone who hadn’t seen the movie could always finish it later. Maria stood up and waved Rhodes down before he could try to join her. She trusted Coulson and Pepper to keep the others in check. (Hell, everyone else would be _outnumbered_.)

 

Clint was clinging to Natasha and had started to hiccup mixed with sobs. _Shit._ Maria picked a rather large, empty bottle off of the floor. Vodka.

 

“Shit,” Maria said, “Did he drink _all_ of this?” she asked Natasha.

 

Concern set into her face, Natasha replied, “I had some too, but I didn’t realize he was drinking it so fast until about ten minutes ago, when he finished the bottle.”

 

They weren’t even trying to be quiet anymore as the happy ending played in the background.

 

Maria swore. A rather long and creative swear that she was rather fond of using. It completely failed at summing up the situation.

 

“Nat? Tasha?” Clint’s voice came from buried in Black Widow’s shoulder, “I lost them. They got left behind. _Rachel_ got left behind.” The man looked up at Natasha, anguished, red-eyed from sobbing, haunted, and started babbling more.

 

“Rachel. _Rachel._ I should have saved you Rachel. I should have stopped you.” Clint was looking into Natasha’s eyes, but Maria knew he was seeing someone else entirely.

 

“I should have saved you Rachel. We left you behind. You and Jake got left behind. Why didn’t you take me _with you?!_ ” Clint hiccuped, “Why was I left to try to fucking _forget?_ ”

 

“Shhhh, shhhh,” Natasha murmured, “You did what you needed to do. You all did.” She started speaking to him softly and gently in Russian and met Maria’s eyes with a worried look.

 

The lights came up gently and Maria realized that the credits were rolling.

 

“Let’s get him out of here, Nat,” she suggested. Natasha nodded and the pair gently pulled Clint to his feet.

 

“No, Rachel, no. Don’ wanna let go a you,” he slurred.

 

And then Clint stumbled and Maria caught him and his unfocused eyes met hers.

 

“Oh, God,” the man moaned, “ _Marco._ I’m sorry, Marco, I should have been quicker. I should have been better. I never wanted - _hic_ \- any of the rest of you to get trapped. Fuck. I should have told you that your plan was stupid. Shoulda gotten you out earlier. Fuck. Marco, I’m sorry.”

 

Christ, the man was bawling. And worse, _babbling_. But Maria knew that there was only one good way that this needed to go and he hated it but these were the Avengers and this was _TOBIAS_.

 

“Hey,” she said with a rough voice, “Hey, Clint, man. It’s not your fault. It was a bad mission. Everyone gets that. It happens, Clint.”

 

“Jake, man. Jake’s _gone._ I don’t know what to do. And now you’re a _nothlit_ too. And she’s dead, Marco. _Rachel’s dead_.”

 

Clint hiccuped and did his best to fall down, but Maria had him by the armpits and Natasha was helping too, so he merely slumped.

 

“It was b-bad, Marco. I had to kill Tom. Right in front of Jake, you know? Is that why he left? God, I need some more vodka. Oh, god. Jake. Rachel. _My Rachel._ Don’t wanna remember but I can’t forget you. _O-Ohana. Rachel._ ”  Despite the support Clint somehow slumped liquidly to the ground.

 

“Clint,” Maria tried again. “Clint, listen to me, buddy, we need to get you to bed. Clint!” It wasn’t working; Clint simply kept muttering about the war and old friends ( _dead friends_ ) and being left behind; being forgotten.

 

“TOBIAS!” Maria yelled in frustration.

 

The man on the ground finally looked up and met her eyes.

 

“Marco?”

 

Maria sighed. “Yeah, buddy, it’s me. You are shit ass drunk. Let’s at least get you into the kitchen, okay?”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Almost everyone is drunk or trying to be. We get some new information. Tony is a prying asshole. Maria would probably be even less comfortable talking about this except that pretty much EVERYONE IN THE ROOM has some form of PTSD. LEARN FROM MY MISTAKE: PUTTING TWELVE STRONG CHARACTERS IN ONE SCENE WHERE _IMPORTANT INFORMATION_ COMES OUT AND THEY ALL HAVE QUESTIONS ABOUT IT MAKES YOU WANT TO CRY AS A WRITER. Especially when so many of them are drunk or trying to be. Thankfully, Phil puts his foot down and saves my sanity for now.
> 
> No, seriously guys, this one was a bitch. *hands out tissues to people, you might need them*

 

Everyone else was in the kitchen already, drinks in hand, when she and Nat finally dragged Clint in and onto a chair. Maria noticed that most of the drinks were coffee, soda, or alcohol, except Thor’s. He had a glass of milk.

 

Choosing to ignore that, because hey, god-like aliens do weird shit, Maria left Clint to Natasha’s care (though Pepper was next to him, and she would help) to take the glass of whiskey that Phil silently offered her. She downed the glass in one go - a blasphemy to whiskey this good but it was on Stark’s dime and she needed to be less sober _right now_ to deal with all this.

 

She sauntered over to the counter for a refill, where _of course_ the whiskey was flanked by Stark and ( _damnit_ ) Rhodey. (She refused to wonder who or what was fucking with her life _this_ time. REFUSED.) The half-expected physical prod didn’t occur, but the inevitable verbal one did.

 

“So, what? Post-op MtF? Because if it is it’s the best I’ve seen,” Stark began, “But oddly enough, I don’t think so. Alien sex-change ray? Please don’t say magic; I hate magic. But you called Clint ‘Tobias’, and he called you ‘Marco’ and there’s _something_ there. So what is it?”

 

Maria rubbed the bridge of her nose and _damnit Stark_. Because if she put him off at all he would gripe and spend time (fruitlessly) hacking any files he could find, but that wouldn’t work forever. And considering the way Rogers was looking between her and Clint, she figured she had about twelve hours before he requested a private meeting with the two of them, because as team leader he needed to know. And that meant that either way, she was _fucked_ , because Rogers _did_ need to know how it could affect his team.

 

“I’m not Trans, if that’s what you’re saying, Stark,” she said dryly, “But yeah, I was born male, I’ve had to learn to live as a female - and it _does_ have its perks - by what might best be called an accident of battle, and yeah, Clint and I have shared history.”

 

Maria took another sip of her drink.

 

“I didn’t think he’d gotten this bad,” she admitted quietly, as she leaned back into the kitchen counter and closed her eyes. “He’d been doing so well the past few years, I guess I missed something.”

 

“He’s been having more nightmares since the fight with Loki,” Natasha said.

 

Maria swore and slammed her glass down on the counter before she dropped it. She should have noticed - she should have _guessed_.

 

“To be fair, Mar,” Pepper’s voice drifted over from where she was coaxing a glass of water into Clint, and trust her to pick up on it as soon as he did. “I didn’t think of it, either.”

 

Stark, Lewis, Banner, and Rogers all looked at Pepper curiously. Maria was glad to at least have that much attention off of her.

 

“Full disclosure, I shared that history too. My name was once Cassie,” Pepper replied, “And Tony don’t get that look - it was over before I started working for you and we all were trying to put it behind us.”

 

“Do you mind telling us about it?” Bruce said quietly.

 

In the silence, Clint (somehow) managed to reply.

 

“Yeah,” he slurred, “Maybe we DO. But hell, why not? My life has been _fucked_ since _before I was born._ Why the _hell not_ let everyone else know?!” He collapsed back into his chair and hid his face in his hands. “God, I _miss my wings_ ,” he moaned.

 

“He’s right, though,” Pepper says while looking at Maria, “At this point the need-to-know outweighs the other circumstances.”

 

Maria couldn’t argue with that - and people with experience fighting alien invasions were uncommon. So she nodded slowly and hid her internal grimace. “Yeah, it does. But I need another drink first. I don’t suppose you have the fixings for a proper Old Fashioned, Stark?”

 

The man looked slightly affronted at the subtle maligning of his liquor cabinets. “Do you really expect me to _not_ have the ingredients for any alcoholic beverage known to mankind? Here, I’ll even make it for you,” he offered.

 

“No, thanks. No one else makes them the way I like them.”

 

Maria made her drink, ignored Stark badgering Pepper, and sat down on the other side of Natasha.

 

The click of setting her glass down onto the table seemed to be a cue. Stark stopped mid-sentence and looked at her along with everyone else.

 

She met Pepper’s eyes and asked, “Where to start?”

 

Pepper replied: “We fought a war together.”

 

***

 

Pepper sighed as Maria went to make herself a drink, and sat down. She wasn’t surprised when Tony sat right down next to her with Steve hovering nearby. She didn’t really mind, either, it was just that everything went south so damned fast.

 

“What’s up, Pep?” Tony asked gently, “Why didn’t you tell me this stuff?” After ten plus years of working with him - and then dating God help her - Tony could still be surprisingly conscientious at times. (Though Tony _had_ always been good at judging other people’s moods, even if he treated them as unimportant much of the time, but well, she knew he loved her and cared about her, and right now she felt at least a decade older than she had two hours ago.)

 

“Because while it’s my story, it’s _theirs too_. Because before SHIELD threw us into each other’s lives again, it was easier to try to move on, Tony. There are reasons I’ve never really needed to ask you about Afghanistan,” she answered him. She wondered if that last sentence might have been pushing it too far, but she’d had taken enough of Tony’s crap over the years that he probably owed her that.

 

Pepper took another sip of her wine as Mar sat across from her.

 

“Where do we start?” Mar asked her.

 

“We fought a war together,” Pepper replied to the table at large - who were scarily attentive considering this crowd. “It ended over ten years ago. We lost friends. We killed people. We _won_ ,” she ended darkly and finished her wine. She spun the stem gently between her fingers.

 

“Ten years ago?” asked Bruce from down the table. “Where were you, Africa?” he asked, confused.

  
    “Couldn’t it have been Afghanistan?” Steve asked with a wrinkled brow.  
  
    “No, Cap, that _started_ about ten years ago. She said ended,” Darcy put in.  
  
    “California,” Tob-Clint slurred, “Cali- _fucking_ -fornia.”  
  
    “God,” Mar muttered from behind her own glass, “The last time I tried to go anywhere _near_ L.A. I had panic attacks for the whole rest of the week.”  
  
    Several people started talking at once.  
  
    “A-fucking-men,” Clint toasted Mar shakily with his water glass.  
     
    “ _California_?” came from Darcy and Jane in chorus.  
     
    “But I thought that your grand Midgardian nation had no international conflicts reach its soils in that time period?” said Thor. (Pepper always had to remind herself that despite looking like a cross between a linebacker and a giant puppy, Thor learned things _quickly_.)  
  
    “L.A.? Did this have something to do with that Sharing thing that collapsed around then? Those bastards tried to hack _me_. _Twice!_ And then turned out to be terrorists,” Tony put in indignantly. Astute as ever.  
  
    “You didn’t put that on your report of that mission, Hill,” Phil said, calmly but disapproving, “ _Barton_ even told us when he had them.”  
  
    “That must have been a _very_ secret war,” Natasha mused.  
  
      “Is anyone else _completely_ lost here?” asked Rhodey as Pepper found Steve handing her a glass of whiskey. (Her favorite, too. She didn’t like most hard liquor. Steve was always thoughtful.)  
  
    “YES!” came a chorus from most of the room.  
  
    “I put ‘Don’t send me to Fucking SoCal  ever again’ on that report, Phil, and since I don’t do that kind of thing on reports, I figured that everyone got the damned _point_. For the record: YES to everyone’s questions. And Stark, I think you finally impressed me. You _weren’t_ hacked by the aliens that had interstellar spaceships,” Maria replied.  
  
    At “aliens” everyone started to talk over each other again.  
  
    “RIGHT,” Phil said firmly into the clamor. Everyone fell silent.  
  
    (Okay, everyone except Tony muttering ‘nice trick, that’ in her ear, but she elbowed him for it and took another _large_ sip of whiskey.)  
  
    “This is not productive,” Phil said in the echoing silence, “Especially as half the people in this room are either drunk or trying very hard to be. If this conversation is to continue, it will be in a controlled manner. Since I doubt _any_ of you will let this go, I will have copies of the relevant files for everyone’s perusal tomorrow, unless one of you three have an objection?” he looked over Clint, Maria, and Pepper herself.

Mar shook her head, Clint just slumped and shrugged, and Pepper met Phil’s eyes.

 

“It’s fine, Phil.”

 

“It’s better than talking about it more,” Maria replied.

  
    Clint started sobbing, which, while Pepper couldn’t blame him, just made her feel even more exhausted.  
  
    “Alright,” Steve spoke, having been mostly silent. “Everyone needs sleep, and this situation is dropped until tomorrow. Got that everyone? Tony?” he stared until Tony nodded. (She was glad Steve had learned how to help handle him.) “Good,” Steve replied, “Avenger’s Disassemble.”  
  
    He turned, and Pepper rose to follow him out the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ***
> 
>  
> 
> Bonus points goes to Anonymous Commenter Hannah who guessed that Pepper was Cassie before I even started posting this fic. FOUR FOR YOU HANNAH, YOU GO HANNAH. Seriously, I didn't expect anyone to guess that. :)


	4. Reactions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First of all, thank you all for your continued support and reading. :) It really does mean a lot to me, and I'm always glad to see people's reactions and questions. 
> 
> Secondly, several people have expressed a desire to do fanart for this series, and I just have to say that I'm absolutely thrilled by this! (On tumblr, the lovely Villianousstrawberry has already posted an amazing piece here: http://villianousstrawberry.tumblr.com/post/35315020082/if-youre-a-fan-of-either-go-read-it ) I mention this now, in the author's notes, because there are only two more weeks until I'm finished posting this fic.
> 
> So basically, I'm trying to do an art round-up. If you have fanart for this fanfic or are planning on making some, first of all THANK YOU SO MUCH, and second of all CONTACT ME, PLEASE! :) Ideally, message me at my tumblr: chromatographic.tumblr.com
> 
> Also, if you go to my tumblr, tonight I'm going to post a sneak peek of Part III. Which, hey, it might not be up for a few months because I have to write the vast majority of it still, and I like to be finished writing when I post, but still - SNEAK PEAK!
> 
> Thanks again for reading everyone, and I hope you enjoy this chapter. :D
> 
> *** *** *** ***

    Nick Fury rubbed his eyes and answered his phone. It had been a damned long day already.  
  
    “Sir.” It was Coulson.  
  
    Fury sighed. “Let me guess, movie night?”  
  
    “Yes sir,” Coulson replied, “Apparently Barton’s been worse than we thought since the battle with Loki.”  
  
    It was too late at night for this shit.  
      
    “Fuck,” Nick swore, “I knew we should have checked on him better.”  
  
    “To be fair to all of us, sir, its been tremendously busy since, and only the two of us would have been able to do so properly. Hill would have been too close to the situation.”  
  
    “What do we need, Coulson?”  
      
    Phil sighed into the phone. “A dozen copies of the files regarding the relevant matters in Los Angeles ten years ago, as comprehensive as possible if not complete. Something came up and everyone here last night needs to be briefed for team stability.”  
  
    Nick processed that and swore furiously.  
  
***  
  


Jane Foster led Thor from the common room, even if they were still both concerned.

  
    “You’re troubled by this more than I would’ve guessed,” she opened.  
      
    “My Lady Jane,” Thor replied, “I do find myself most concerned by this new knowledge.”  
  
    “Why? I understand everyone else, and I know I’m still processing it, too, but you were raised in a warrior culture... I just wonder what you’re thinking.”  
  
    “I had not recognized that Lady Pepper had such a past. Lady Maria’s situation is... somewhat unusual, and while she is our comrade with SHIELD, this speaks of something far more painful. My Shieldbrother Clint carries much grief and pain inside him, though we did not know the extent until this night.”  
  
    “We’ll know more tomorrow,” Jane replied gently, and led him to their rooms.  
  
***  
  
    “You owe me five bucks,” Darcy said. “I told _you_ someone would have issues with _Ohana_. Okay, so I didn’t know it’d be Clint and I really, _really_ didn’t think it’d be nearly that bad, but still? Called it.”  
  
    Bruce folded her into his arms and she relaxed into him, an unconscious trust that she’d somehow had since they’d met.   
  
    “Darcy,” he began.  
  
    “Nu-uh,” she countered. “No second guessing right now. I get it - he’s part of the team, one of your friends, yadda yadda. And you feel guilty because you didn’t see it, but _no one else_ had a clue either, except Natasha and she only had a little. We’ll find out more tomorrow so - Mmph!”  
  
    He was right when he figured that kissing her would shut her up.  
  
***  
  


Natasha helped - practically carried - Clint back to his room. She ignored his nonsensical mutters and began to undress him before he completely succumbed to unconsciousness. He brushed her off long enough to relieve himself, so Natasha changed into her own nightwear. They settled into bed, and she let Clint hold her close.

 

“I love you, Rachel,” he told her.

 

She knew - had known - he had his ghosts, especially his past love. But she knew only the bare bones, and she knew he couldn’t tell her more.

 

“Love you too, Tobias,” she said back.

 

She pretended that it was for his own comfort. But in truth it was the closest they could ever come to declaring their love for each other.

 

‘Love is for children,’ she’d told him, long ago now.

 

‘We were never children, Tasha,’ he had replied.

 

They both knew it was true.

 

***

 

Pepper leaned against the doorjamb of their bedroom and sighed. Steve was already in the room, but she didn’t anticipate any more prodding from _him_ tonight. Tony, however, was walking up behind her.

 

“Pepper?” he said, touching her shoulder gently. “If we’re all going to bed, we kind of have to go to the bedroom.”

 

She sucked in a breath through her teeth.

 

“I... I wasn’t sure if you wanted me to sleep here tonight,” she replied, carefully neutral.

 

Because Tony didn’t just have trust issues, he had trust _volumes_. And somehow she’d become one of his oldest friends, and had never even hinted about this. She might have very well broken his trust tonight.

 

“Hey,” Tony said gently as he wrapped his arms around her, “I don’t understand what’s going on here, but you’re still Pepper Potts. We’ve still known each other for - what? - a decade or something? You run my company and keep me in line and somehow date me  - somehow _love_ me - even though I’m a complete fuck-up.. You even share me with Steve. And vice versa or something like that, whatever, we made it work. Just because your past, the things you did before me is different than I thought? Doesn’t change any of that.”

 

She let him hold her and whispered, “Thank you.”

 

“Hey you two,” Steve said from inside the room. “It’s time for bed, and it’d be swell to have both of you in it with me,” he sing-songed out to them.

 

Tony smiled - and _oh_ , yes, it was one of his real smiles. She smiled a bit back. Maybe this would be okay after all.

 

They joined Steve and went to bed.

 

***

 

Quite soon after Steve told everyone to break it up, Rhodey found himself nearly alone in the kitchen. With Maria. Who was maybe really named Marco? The past few years had led to some very confusing moments, but this might be the most confusing. Considering that thought - yeah, definitely the _most_ confusing, if only because this time it was no way caused by Tony.

 

He doesn’t know what to say, and figured he probably shouldn’t just leave because he and Maria have been dancing around each other for a few weeks now and... he’s allowed to be confused about this, right?

 

“So,” Maria broke the silence, fiddling with the muddler from her drink. “You’re confused, I get that, it’s okay. I’ll just put it this way for now: I wasn’t born in this body - and by that I mean not like Trans people are or whatever the fuck people say about them - I mean that the DNA and physiology this body has is literally _not at all the same_ as what I was born with. I didn’t choose to have it be permanent, to be stuck as a woman. But it’s been permanent for over a decade, now, and there is... well, I won’t say ‘no’ because, _fuck_ , our lives are nuts, but _extremely little_ chance that these facts are ever going to change.”

 

She paused to take a breath, and Rhodey just did his best to listen. He guessed that whatever happened, whatever he felt, he owed her that much.

 

“Adjusting was _not_ easy, but I’ve been female a long time now, and the body always affects the brain, especially after so long. I’ve been female all of my adult life, Rhodey. And yeah, I was born male, and I didn’t choose this or want it,” she shrugged, “So I don’t know where you want to go from here, and I don’t blame you if you totally reject me as a romantic interest after learning all this, but I still like you. I’m still the same person I was a couple hours ago - you just know... more about me now.”

 

“Um. Okay,” Rhodey replied. _Very intelligent response_ there, he chided himself. “I just... I just thought I was used to the weird shit being thrown at me by now with... “ he waved his hands vaguely in the air, “Everything and all.”

 

Maria nodded slowly, “Yeah... I’ve been in similar spots. More than once. And while it gets easier to just accept and roll with it, it never gets less surprising.”

 

“I just,” Rhodey ran a hand through his hair, “I just really don’t know what to think. About this. At all.”

 

Maria raised her eyebrows at him.

 

“Rhodey, tonight you found out that three people who you’ve come to count as friends once had different names and histories and connections to each other that you didn’t know about. One of whom is the woman who you just asked out on a date yesterday, and it turned out that she was born a boy. On top of that, you don’t have any understanding or data on what said previously unknown past is, just that it exists and our vague drunken hints. So: _No Shit Sherlock_. No one _expects_ you to know what to think, least of all me.”

 

She rubbed her eyes and took a breath, “Right now, we both need sleep. They’ll be more information in the morning and we’ll all have clearer heads. Okay?”

 

Rhodey could she that she had good points. “Okay,” he sighed. “But... _California_?”

 

Maria’s lips quirked, “Yeah. California.”

 

After a moment, Rhodey decided to drop it. They left the room and he didn’t think about what he was doing until he had seen Maria to her room. He shook his head - he obviously had a lot to think about - and decided to go the fuck to sleep.


	5. The Infestation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay so, y'all are possibly lucky because I decided to update this early rather than late. Due to Family Issues, I will be with limited internet for the next few days to a week, and I didn't want to leave you guys hanging. The final chapter will *probably* be posted on the correct "monday" schedule, but, due to said issues that is currently in flux.
> 
> A reminder that if you want to contact me for fanart offers, as outlined in last chapter, my tumblr is: chromatographic.tumblr.com - It might take me a day or two to get back to you because of said Issues. Don't worry, it's nothing really _bad_ just unexpected and mildly frustrating.
> 
> As a final note: This chapter was simultaneously the easiest and hardest chapter to write. I hope you all enjoy it, though. After this, there's one chapter to go, and then we're on another break while I pull out the next fic _by its teeth_.
> 
> For anyone reading this who _isn't_ familiar with Animorphs? This is the scariest chapter in the fic. Those who _have_ read Animorphs - it's par for the course.

In 1999, Junior Agent Phil Coulson was on his first mission for SHIELD.

 

Two days into his mission, he was compromised.

 

Three hours later, he received assistance from a heretofore unknown group.

 

Four days after that, he made contact with SHIELD, and demanded to talk to only the director to make his report. He spoke to Assistant Director Nicholas Fury, instead.

 

***

 

Phil woke up to his head pounding. He was gagged and bound - hands behind him so at least semi-professionally and his initial assessment of the knot was a well-done one - his vision blurry, mouth dry, and his left leg numb with sleep.

 

The scary thing was that these were not the things that bothered him. The scary thing was that his body was shifting his leg awake, blinking his vision clear, and trying to moisten his mouth _\- and Phil wasn’t doing it._

 

His body groaned loudly and shifted. Phil could feel something in his mind go through his memories and contingencies like a secretary flipping through a rolodex, pausing here and there for a closer look.

 

Phil remembered then, and screamed. His body didn’t react. that was bad. And he didn’t usually swear, even in his head, but he had no problem thinking that he was well and truly _fucked._

 

***

 

Junior Agent Phillip Coulson had joined SHIELD after having spent two years in Special Ops. He aced every weapons exam, did well in all of his trainings, and was unfailingly punctual.

 

And here he was on his first mission as an agent: Gain access to information within the organizations known as The Sharing, which was setting off alarm flags of the possibly-a-cult-possibly-a-terrorist-organization type.

 

No one, Phil knew, _No one_ , had mentioned aliens from outer space.

 

Then he had accidentally stumbled onto the scene of the “community leader” talking to a nine-foot tall, bladed, reptilian-looking _creature_ , and Phil, like an _idiot_ , was caught from behind. The thought that he’d taken five human and three blade-creatures down before they knocked him out with something was only a small comfort.

 

The rest of the night was a blur - _Possible concussion?_ He remembered being taken underground. More strange creatures, more people - humans - talking around him. A red glow of a mercurial pond. People - humans and what for lack of better data he filed under ‘aliens’ alike - in cages. Marched into a line and shoved through the front until his head submerged in the liquid. Blurs of fighting - something blue? And … a tiger? Yes. A tiger, a gorilla, a grizzly bear.

 

Phil was really hoping that these memories were some sort of hallucinations from whatever he’d been knocked out with. Or perhaps he’d simply gotten _very_ drunk and it was all a dream.

  
    <Andalite Bandits,> something hissed _in his head_ at the visuals of the animals, though, and all Phil’s hopes were dashed.  
  
    The animals damaged some storage sheds and released some cages, mostly simply causing chaos. He remembers stumbling towards the gorilla, fighting his own body, asking for help. Remembers being dragged up stories of stairs with a few - too few - other prisoners, freed.   
  
    Not free yet.  
  
    <Correct, human,> the - _thing_ \- inside his head said as it continued to shuffle through his brain.  
  
    <Oh, you’re awake,> an observing voice interrupted Phil’s thoughts and potential interactions with the... well, he had to admit it, even if it was like a B-movie plot. The alien _controlling his body._  
  
    His body looked up and saw a hawk settle on a roof beam of what appeared to be a rough shack - one room, barely 10x10, that he was tied up in.  
  
    “Andalite!” his body screamed and struggled against the bonds in a flamboyant manner, while Phil’s practiced hands (without his input) worked through the knots.  
  
    < _Yeerk_ ,> the bird? - it must be the bird - replied with dry disdain.  
  
    Phil was, perhaps, the most confused he’d been in his entire life.  
  
***  
  
    By the next day, things were unfortunately clearer.  
  
    ‘Unfortunately’ meaning that the situation went from “I’m fucked” to _shitShitSHITfuckinghellwearescrewedDAMNIT_ and possibly beyond. Phil considered that if he had bothered to rate it from 1-10, the situation would be 200 because it wasn’t just _Phil_ who was fucked, it was the _entire fucking planet_.  
      
    Because, well...  
  
    Fact 1: Aliens were invading the planet. They were apparently called the Yeerks, and took other species bodies as hosts by invading the cranium. (And really Phil didn’t want to think about that too much and _couldn’t stop thinking about it_ because _there was one in his brain_.) The individual Phil was... interacting with... was named (designated?) Kotan368, who was not only able to completely control Phil’s body but also rifle through Phil’s brain at will, all of his knowledge and memories. Including all his codewords and security information he knew just from working at SHIELD. Which was very, very bad.  
  
    Fact 2: The only force apparently fighting the Yeerks on Earth was a small band of ‘Andalites’ - another alien species - who had escaped a space-battle near Earth (and how had satellites missed that?) that they had lost. And the ‘Andalite Bandits’ mostly fought as Earth animals through some sort of shape-shifting technology.  
  
    Fact 3 was the most chilling of all: It was clear to _Phil_ that only one of the ‘Bandits’ was actually an Andalite, and he was young. The rest of the band (and it was unnervingly _small_ \- Phil thought there were eight at most, but most likely six) were humans. Humans in their _early teens_. The alien in his head (name or not, it called him ‘human’ so he was going to call it ‘the alien’, _damnit_ ) did not agree (was scared to agree? Phil didn’t care to push it) but that didn’t matter to Phil. He could reach his own conclusions.  
  
    Fact 4: The children ( _children!_ ) were starving the alien out of his head. It would take ‘around two more days’ and they had obviously done this before. Phil wasn’t sure what disturbed him more: the fact that the alien invasion of Earth’s only real opposition was a group of children, or that said children were relatively comfortable in starving a sentient being to death.  
      
    <So nice to know you care,> Kotan sneered at Phil.  
  
    Admittedly, Phil couldn’t argue against the result of said starvation - his body would be back under his own control and his secrets - _S.H.I.E.L.D.’s_ secrets - would no longer be compromised.   
  
    He’d had six different guards throughout - he didn’t think there were more in the group, but it was possible - and Phil was certain that only one of them was an Andalite. Said alien was there fairly regularly - usually throughout the middle of the day and parts of the night.  
      
    The hawk, who was a young male no older than 16, was there more often than anyone else, even the Andalite. The Yeerk had been surprised the first time the bird’s shift lasted more than a couple of hours - and he was in sight the whole time as a bird. Apparently that meant that the boy was trapped as a hawk, a _nothlit_ , and Phil really didn’t know what to think about that.  
  
    The other four Phil had seen much less of. They took shifts late at night for the most part, and even the Yeerk had to succumb to Phil’s post-concussion lassitude. They showed up solely in morphs of Earth mammals: a tiger, a grizzly bear, a wolf, and a gorilla.   
  
    The yeerk, armed with Phil’s body, knowledge, and skills, had tried to escape several times, particularly the second day, when Phil had mostly recovered from what he was sure was a minor-concussion. Each time was soundly rebuffed by various guards - once by him losing consciousness by the blade on the tail of the Andalite. Phil occasionally got snippets of telepathy - of _thought-speak_ from his guards, mostly directed at the yeerk.  
  
    <You know, we’ve done this before,> the gorilla (also male, human, no older than 16) had said once. <And I will add that even with your frankly impressive super-spyness, you are _not_ the most difficult yeerk we’ve had to starve by a long shot. >  
  
    Phil had finally felt a wry spark of hope at that.  
  
***  
  
    The morning of the third day, things began to get bad. Terrible, to be honest. The yeerk was starving and Phil could feel the effects. It started talking to him, more, and more as an equal as it was in pain. Phil, to be honest, didn’t care - and he had endured far more tortures than he could feel from this creature. It was starting to make Phil’s body babble aloud, though, just murmurs for now, but they were challenging, hateful things that Phil did not like to hear coming past his lips.  
  
    <It’s the _fugue_ ,> the bird had told him once he’d realized, <It’s only a few more hours until the Yeerk dies.>  
  
    While Phil had figured that out, it was reassuring, especially as it was clear that the boy was talking to _him_ , Phil, not the creature in his body.  
  
    About midmorning, the tiger came in. It fixed Phil with a predator’s stare and he could feel his body tense automatically, the instinctual monkey brain overriding whatever input the Yeerk was fit to give.  
  
    “Here to mock me, Andalite?” the yeerk said with Phil’s mouth.  “Here to enjoy the pain I’m going through?”   
      
    <No,> the tiger said softly. <I’m here to help Agent Coulson. As much as I can.>  
  
    “Then maybe the Visser is wrong, and this host right,” the yeerk said, “And only one of you actually is an Andalite after all.”  
  
    The tiger stiffened, and then seemed to give a little shrug, resigned. And then he went right up to Phil and stared into his eyes, face to face. Phil could feel the hot breath all down his throat, and his body automatically swallowed nervously.  
  
    <And if that is true?> the boy asked, completely confirming it.  
  
    The yeerk somehow laughed through the pain that even Phil could feel in its starvation.  
  
    “Why are you here then, _child_?” the yeerk said like an accusation.  
  
    The tiger flopped down around Phil like a housecat around a kitten.   
  
    <I’m here to help Agent Coulson get through this the best that he can.>  
  
    “What makes you think you can help?”  
      
    <Because, yeerk,> the tiger said wearily. <I’ve gone through the _fugue_ before, too. And I know the pain of it, and what is left behind. >  
  
    Phil was rocked a bit by the statement, and he could tell that the Yeerk was as well, as he was simply painfully quiet.  
  
      
***  
  
    The next few hours were grueling. The next few days were... scarily informative. By the time he managed to reconnect with SHIELD, Phil was on first-name basis with all six of the Animorphs - and he’d been correct on all his guesses. Five human children, and one cadet Andalite, against an entire alien invasion that was out of a bad horror movie.   
  
Back at SHIELD, it took a few days to convince his superiors that he would only talk to the Director about the matter, in private. He settled on being debriefed by Assistant Director Fury. It took another week to arrange a meeting between SHIELD and the Animorphs, and another three months to plan and extract the human Animorphs from their “normal” home lives in a manner that wouldn’t attract Yeerk attention.  
  
It took three years for the Animorphs and a small cohort of SHIELD agents to finally oust the Yeerk invasion from Earth. Most of the agents died.  
  
Nothing has phased Senior Agent Phil Coulson since.  
  
***


	6. Chapter 6

At 6 a.m. sharp, as Phil, back from his morning routine in the gym, was putting on the tie of his suit, he received a message that the secure courier was in the lobby with the documents he had requested.

 

He took them up to the main living room the Avengers used, made certain he had everything he needed - but not, he noted, everything that was there, that was good - and then ate his breakfast. He waited for the Avengers and associates to trickle in as he reviewed some files in the last bit of peace he would have for the day.

 

***

 

Natasha woke up curled around Clint with all the blankets twisted because the man could never sleep _still_. She gently extricated herself from his sprawl and kissed his forehead before beginning her morning routine. She was sipping her post-morning warm-up but pre-shower cup of coffee before she let herself think about the night before.

 

            Clint had fallen asleep curled around her - still intoxicated - and sobbing over names she hasn’t heard before, like the dam behind his tongue had finally overflowed. So many names she hadn’t heard before, human _\- Earth_ \- ones like Jake and Tom, Cassie and Marco, Loren - _mother_ \- and that one hurt, Erek and Eva and Melissa and more. And then there were the alien ones that rolled off of his tongue with a liquid sadness: Ax - Aximili, Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill; Elfangor, Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul; Ket Halpak and Jara Hamee; Toby Hamee - _namesake, seer, dead._ Some were spoken with light bitterness: Aldrea, Alloran, Mertil and Gafinlian, Aftran, and others. And some were spoken with a hatred that she’d never heard from Clint before: Visser One, Visser Three, _Yeerks_.

 

            And over and over, mournful, pained, loved, and grieving, the name she’d heard many times before: _Rachel._

 

            Natasha had known that most of Clint’s official past was full of deliberate gaps and outright lies, (Joining the circus? A little too cliche to be believable) and that Clint had shared more of the truth with her than with anyone else. She’d put together some pieces of the puzzle and she’d known she’d only gotten the fringes. She’d known that he had started fighting young, not as young as herself, and certainly not trained, but by most standards too young all the same. Now, though, Natasha was beginning to think that he hadn’t just been a fighter as a child - abused or bullied or whatever had made him what he was today.

 

Clint had been an untrained soldier. As a child.

 

And that was an entirely different prospect.

 

***

 

Steve always woke before his lovers did. (And part of him still couldn’t believe that he had one, much less two, amazing people as that part of his life.) Or if they woke, he did too - he’d always been a light sleeper and the serum made him need even less sleep than Tony seemed to.

 

He laid there - at the edge of the huge bed because a sleeping Tony tended to hog _everything_ \- and took his time to look his lovers over. Last night... well, last night had been rough for everyone, but especially Pepper, Maria, and Clint. He set everyone else aside, though (they could wait), and focused on Tony and Pepper.

 

He’d woken facing them, Pepper in the middle (and he could already hear the grumbling she usually gave from being stuck in the middle between two “heaters turned up to _twelve_ ”) with her long hair spread brightly over the pillow. She always had some worry lines, even in sleep, and today’s were, well, the worst he’d ever seen them. Tony, though, was curled around her, holding her like she was the most precious thing in the universe (and Steve didn’t mind the thought that to him, she really _was_ ). That was reassuring - Pepper had been right to worry about his trust issues last night.

 

Steve himself wasn’t overly bothered that Pepper had kept this a secret - he had fairly often wished that he could have had the option to do just that, to leave all the fighting and war behind him and shed the strange legend he’d become behind.

 

He was worried, though, that Pep would start to push them away - she’d almost done it to Tony last night, even if it was out of fear and insecurity - and they’d both have to be careful not to let her.

 

In his core, though, he felt a sense of peace. It had been rough getting here, to this odd relationship the three of them had, but somehow Steve knew in his bones that they were _stable_ right now, together, and none of them wanted to have anything different. If this drama had reared its head as early as a month ago, he’d have been more worried but... somehow Steve just knew that they’d get through it, just like they somehow got through every battle and every night.

 

They all had nightmares - his were the most violent, Tony’s the most talkative (but only to them, even in sleep - and Steve knew how precious that was), and Pepper’s... were quiet. Steve only knew them from the shuddering and the harsh breathing and the wimpers. Pepper never talked about them, and Tony told Steve privately that he thought she’d been raped in the past. Steve always figured that she’d talk to them when she needed to, and was ready to.

 

Now, Steve suspected that that theory was far from the truth. They were three very broken people, and Pepper had done her best to start both Steve and Tony towards healing. It wouldn’t be easy, but Steve knew that now the two of them had to be there for Pepper.

 

Because sometimes you could only forget for so long.

 

***

 

James Rhodes woke up alone.

 

So did Maria Hill.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \----------  
> \----------
> 
> And that's a wrap for FoA;FoW, folks. *collapses* I'm exhausted right now.
> 
> A preview for the next story can be found on my tumblr, here: http://chromatographic.tumblr.com/post/36634893094 - It is tentatively titled: SHIELD FILES A13I-YR11.
> 
> It's more or less just in the beginning stages of writing, and what I thought it was going to be has changed a bit. There will be at least four months before it's even near ready to post, and probably more like six months. Within the last week I've been badgered by a few more plotbunnies though, so we'll see what the fingers want to write - if a one-shot decided to come out, there may be a post sooner. Again, I'll mention that subscribing to the _series_ page is the best way to know when I'm updating.
> 
> Thank you all for your support, comments, and conversations on this story - I've appreciated every kudo, comment, and read. :)
> 
> And yes, for the record, when I told my beta: "Here it is. I'm done." she got to the end and asked me where the rest of it was. I had to tell her, "no, that's it for now". She told me I was evil.
> 
> Pretty sure I'm no where near K.A.A.'s level of evil, personally, but I'm taking it as a compliment.


End file.
